The North East District has 1,210 more vacancies in Q3 this year, compared to the increase of 758 in the second quarter of the year.

According to data released by the North East CDC, this is likely due to the increase of 43% (238) in Q3 '09 in the number of employers approaching North East CDC as compared to Q2 '09.

This has also led to the 86 per cent increase in the placement rate in September vis a vis the August placement rate.

A quarter-on-quarter comparison also saw a decrease of 20 per cent (401) in the number of job seekers requesting for employment assistance in Q3 2009 (1,628) as compared to Q2 2009 (2,029).

While social assistance applications have sharply increased by 53 per cent from January to September 2009 as compared to the same period last year, statistical figures from the North East CDC also shows that the the number of people coming forward to seek social assistance has been slowly decreasing since July 2009.